Consumers have generally unfavorable opinions about personalized ads, and that extends to targeted ads on social media, according to survey results from Morning Consult. More than one-quarter (28%) of US adults surveyed believe that receiving targeted ads on social media is always an invasion of privacy, as compared to just 11% who feel that it’s never an invasion of their privacy.
The largest group (42%), however, perceives targeted ads on social to be sometimes an invasion of privacy, but that it depends.
Gen Zers (between the ages of 13 and 25) – who spend plenty of time on social media – tend to be a little more forgiving to targeted ads on these platforms. While they’re as unlikely as US adults in general to see them as never being an invasion of privacy (just 11% do so), they’re more likely to perceive them as being sometimes an invasion of privacy (56% share), and less likely to believe they’re always an invasion of privacy (17% share).
In previous research, Gen Z adults (ages 18-25) have found retargeted ads on social media based on recent shopping experiences on other sites to be mostly “cool” rather than “creepy.” However the practice of cross-device targeting – in which ads follow across devices – was met with a much more harsh reception, with about 6 in 10 Gen Z adults considering them “creepy” rather than “cool.”
Meanwhile, in separate results from the Morning Consult surveys, half of Gen Zers said they prefer companies to update their branding (such as colors, logo, packaging), while an equal share prefer companies to keep their branding the same. Male Gen Zers were slightly more likely than their female counterparts (53% and 48%, respectively) to prefer that companies keep their branding the same.
Among US adults, there was a 60:40 split in favor of keeping branding the same, with this preference again slightly higher among men than women.
About the Data: The results are based on two surveys conducted in early November 2022. One was among a representative sample of 1,000 US Gen Zers between the ages of 13 and 25, and the other was among a representative sample of 2,210 US adults (18+).